Soap character absences in big story lines

saw a clip of the rovers fire on Corry from 1986 and all the cast were there except for Curly (visiting his Aunt) and it made me think about other big soap storys where all the residents are involved but somebody always seems to be away.

just wonder if it's a contractual thing with actor holidays that they happen to be unavailable when certain stories are filmed so the character's absence is explained or just script writers decided who is there / not there when something happens.

That's a good point actually. I would imagine it's to with holidays/leave as you say; also other characters could be filming other scenes: I know when Crossroads MkII was being made a few years ago, they could have four scenes being shot at any one time

good point about double filming units, Emmerdale seems to have a problem with that which shows in the woolpack scenes where more often than not the place is empty except for the characters involved in the scene

anyway, obviously some absences are part of the storyline like the Beales being away when the café caught fire but others like Curley's absence during the rovers fire or on Brookside and entire family were away when another house caught fire could be just clashes with filming and holidays.

Up until Corrie went 3 times a week there was a much smaller cast so it was more noticeable when people were absent. Also back then they usually had the same group of chatacter who would appear in the 2 episodes and others wouldn't appear that week so it could be for that reason.

I'd forgoten about that Jez

when Dev's shop blew up it was the first time I've seen all the residents of the terrace outside their houses

The Peackocks were absent on that occasion